Murmures
[Commentary] Low Ebb for Cameroon Cinema
janvier 2013 | Divers | Cinéma/TV | Cameroun
Source : Bakwa magazine
© Bakwa magazine
English
(An Excerpt from The Mwalimu’s Reader) // Bakwa magazine
Posted: December 11, 2011 in Online Content
Tags: ABBIA, Africa, Basseck Ba Khobio, Cameroon Cinema, Construction Hauling INC, cultu
The state of cinema in Cameroon is an all too brooding subject. This is so because the vacuum created by the absence of home made films in a globalised movie world, makes of us a cultural laughing stock. Not that the country is lacking in producers, directors, cinematographers, prop-men, actors, script girls or even financing. Rather, misplaced priorities seem to have taken an upper hand on creativity.
Once upon a time, Cameroon cinema saw its infancy after independence. At that time, it was groping in the dark. It was only in the late 70’s that the government came up with a very ambitious programme- the creation of the National Fund for Cinematographic Development (FODIC). Thus, our cinema halls also began to show Cameroonian films, and came films like Pousse-Pousse, Les Cooperants, Trois Petits Cireurs, Sango Malo, Chocolat, Black Ninja, just to name a few. These were little footsteps in creativity and exposure.
Names of producers like Daniel Kamwa, Arthur Si Bita, Georges Anderson, Alphonse Beni and Basseck Ba Khobio started becoming household names. As the years rolled by, something went wrong with FODIC. There were reports of embezzlement of funds; producers came up with plausible scripts, took funding and disappeared into oblivion. Thus the death nail was hammered on FODIC and it went bankrupt and closed shop. And so began the wilderness for Cameroon’s cinema.
READ MORE, at Bakwa magazine
Tags: ABBIA, Africa, Basseck Ba Khobio, Cameroon Cinema, Construction Hauling INC, cultu
The state of cinema in Cameroon is an all too brooding subject. This is so because the vacuum created by the absence of home made films in a globalised movie world, makes of us a cultural laughing stock. Not that the country is lacking in producers, directors, cinematographers, prop-men, actors, script girls or even financing. Rather, misplaced priorities seem to have taken an upper hand on creativity.
Once upon a time, Cameroon cinema saw its infancy after independence. At that time, it was groping in the dark. It was only in the late 70’s that the government came up with a very ambitious programme- the creation of the National Fund for Cinematographic Development (FODIC). Thus, our cinema halls also began to show Cameroonian films, and came films like Pousse-Pousse, Les Cooperants, Trois Petits Cireurs, Sango Malo, Chocolat, Black Ninja, just to name a few. These were little footsteps in creativity and exposure.
Names of producers like Daniel Kamwa, Arthur Si Bita, Georges Anderson, Alphonse Beni and Basseck Ba Khobio started becoming household names. As the years rolled by, something went wrong with FODIC. There were reports of embezzlement of funds; producers came up with plausible scripts, took funding and disappeared into oblivion. Thus the death nail was hammered on FODIC and it went bankrupt and closed shop. And so began the wilderness for Cameroon’s cinema.
READ MORE, at Bakwa magazine
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